by Ngaio Marsh
‘Is there any reason why she should?’
‘No! My God, no! No!’
Alleyn waited for a little, visited, as was not unusual with him, by a distaste for this particular aspect of his job.
He said: ‘What did you do when Miss Lee couldn’t receive you?’
Richard moved away from him, his hands thrust down in his pockets. ‘I went for a walk,’ he said.
‘Now, look here,’ Alleyn said, ‘you must see that this is a very odd story. Your guardian, as I believe Miss Bellamy was, reaches the top moment of her birthday party. You leave her cold, first in pursuit of Miss Lee and then to go for a stroll round Chelsea. Are you telling me that you’ve been strolling ever since?’
Without turning, Richard nodded.
Alleyn walked round him and looked him full in the face.
‘Mr Dakers,’ he said. ‘Is that the truth? It’s now five to nine. Do you give me your word that from about seven o’clock when you left this house you didn’t return to it until you came in, ten minutes ago?’
Richard, looking desperately troubled, waited for so long that to Alleyn the scene became quite unreal. The two of them were fixed in the hiatus like figures in a suspended film sequence.
‘Are you going to give me an answer?’ Alleyn said at last.
‘I – I – don’t – think – I did actually – just after – she was …’ A look of profound astonishment came into Richard’s face. He crumpled into a faint at Alleyn’s feet.
II
‘He’ll do,’ Dr Harkness said, relinquishing Richard’s pulse. He straightened up and winced a little in the process. ‘You say he’s been walking about on an empty stomach and two or three drinks. The shock coming on top of it did the trick for him, I expect. In half an hour he won’t be feeling any worse than I do and that’s medium to bloody awful. Here he comes.’
Richard had opened his eyes. He stared at Dr Harkness and then frowned. ‘Lord, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I passed out, didn’t I?’
‘You’re all right,’ Dr Harkness said. ‘Where’s this sal volatile, Gracefield?’
Gracefield presented it on a tray. Richard drank it down and let his head fall back. They had put him on a sofa there in the drawing-room. ‘I was talking to somebody,’ he said. ‘That man – God, yes! Oh, God.’
‘It’s all right,’ Alleyn said, ‘I won’t worry you. We’ll leave you to yourself, for a bit.’
He saw Richard’s eyes dilate. He was looking past Alleyn towards the door. ‘Yes,’ he said loudly. ‘I’d rather be alone.’
‘What is all this?’
It was Warrender. He shut the door behind him and went quickly to the sofa. ‘What the devil have you done to him? Dicky, old boy …’
‘No!’ Richard said with exactly the same inflexion as before. Warrender stood above him. For a moment, apparently, they looked at each other. Then Richard said: ‘I forgot that letter you gave me to post. I’m sorry.’
Alleyn and Fox moved, but Warrender anticipated them, stooping over Richard and screening him.
‘If you don’t mind,’ Richard said. ‘I’d rather be by myself. I’m all right.’
‘And I’m afraid,’ Alleyn pointed out, ‘that I must remind you of instructions, Colonel Warrender. I asked you to stay with the others. Will you please go back to them?’
Warrender stood like a rock for a second or two and then, without another word, walked out of the room. On a look from Alleyn, Fox followed him.
‘We’ll leave you,’ Alleyn said. ‘Don’t get up.’
‘No,’ Dr Harkness said. ‘Don’t. I’ll ask them to send you in a cup of tea. Where’s that old nanny of yours? She can make herself useful. Can you find her, Gracefield?’
‘Very good, sir,’ Gracefield said.
Alleyn, coolly picking up Richard’s dispatch-case, followed Gracefield into the hall.
‘Gracefield.’
Gracefield, frigid, came to a halt.
‘I want one word with you. I expect this business has completely disorganized your household and I’m afraid it can’t be helped. But I think it may make things a little easier in your department if you know what the form will be.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘In a little while a mortuary van will come. It will be better if we keep everybody out of the way at that time. I don’t want to worry Mr Templeton more than I can help, but I shall have to interview people and it would suit us all if we could find somewhere that would serve as an office for the purpose. Is that possible?’
‘There is Mr Richard’s old study, sir, on the first floor. It is unoccupied.’
‘Splendid. Where exactly?’
‘The third on the right along the passage, sir.’
‘Good.’ Alleyn glanced at the pallid and impassive face. ‘For your information,’ he said, ‘it’s a matter of clearing up the confusion that unfortunately always follows accidents of this sort. The further we can get, now, the less publicity at the inquest. You understand?’
‘Quite so, sir,’ said Gracefield, with a slight easing of manner.
‘Very well. And I’m sorry you’ll be put to so much trouble.’
Gracefield’s hand curved in classic acceptance. There was a faint crackle.
‘Thank you, Gracefield.’
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ said Gracefield. ‘I will inform Mrs Plumtree and then ascertain if your room is in order.’ He inclined his head and mounted the stairs.
Alleyn raised a finger and the constable by the front door came to him.
‘What happened,’ he asked, ‘about Mr Dakers? As quick and complete as you can.’
‘He arrived, sir, about three minutes after you left your instructions, according to which I asked for his name and let on it was because of an accident. He took it up it was something about a car. He didn’t seem to pay much attention. He was very excited and upset. He went upstairs and was there about eight to ten minutes. You and Mr Fox were with the two gentlemen and the lady in that little room, sir. When he came down he had a case in his hand. He went to the door to go out and I advised him it couldn’t be done. He still seemed very upset, sir, and that made him more so. He said: ‘Good God, what is all this?’ and went straight to the room where you were, sir.’
‘Good. Thank you. Keep going.’
‘Sir,’ said the constable.
‘And Philpott.’
‘Sir?’
‘We’ve sent for another man. In the meantime I don’t want any of the visitors in the house moving about from room to room. Get them all together in the drawing-room and keep them there, including Colonel Warrender and Mr Templeton if he’s feeling fit enough. Mr Dakers can stay where he is. Put the new man on the door and you keep observation in the dining-room. We can’t do anything about the lavatory, I suppose, but everywhere else had better be out of bounds. If Colonel Warrender wants to go to the lavatory, you go with him.’
‘Sir.’
‘And ask Mr Fox to join me upstairs.’
The constable moved off.
A heavy thumping announced the descent of Old Ninn. She came down one step at a time. When she got to the bottom of the stairs and saw Alleyn she gave him a look and continued on her way. Her face was flaming and her mouth drawn down. For a small person she emanated an astonishingly heavy aura of the grape.
‘Mrs Plumtree?’ Alleyn asked.
‘Yes,’ said Old Ninn. She halted and looked into his face. Her eyes, surprisingly, were tragic.
‘You’re going to look after Mr Richard, aren’t you?’
‘What’s he been doing to himself?’ she asked as if Richard had been playing roughly and had barked his knee.
‘He fainted. The doctor thinks it was shock.’
‘Always takes things to heart,’ Old Ninn said.
‘Did you bring him up?’
‘From three months.’ She continued to look fixedly at Alleyn. ‘He was a good child,’ she said as if she was abusing Richard, ‘ and he’s grown into a good man. No harm in him and never was
.’
‘An orphan?’ Alleyn ventured.
‘Father and mother killed in a motor accident.’
‘How very sad.’
‘You don’t,’ Old Ninn said, ‘feel the want of what you’ve never had.’
‘And of course Miss Bellamy – Mrs Templeton – took him over.’
‘She,’ Old Ninn said, ‘was a different type of child altogether. If you’ll excuse me I’ll see what ails him.’ But she didn’t move at once. She said very loudly: ‘Whatever it is it’ll be no discredit to him,’ and then stumped heavily and purposefully on to her charge.
Alleyn waited for a moment, savouring her observations. There had been one rather suggestive remark, he thought.
Dr Harkness came out of the drawing-room, looking very wan.
‘He’s all right,’ he said, ‘and I wish I could say as much for myself. The secondary effects of alcoholic indulgence are the least supportable. By the way, can I go out to the car for my bag? It’s just opposite the house. Charles Templeton’s my patient, you know, and I’d like to run him over. Just in case. He’s had a bad knock over this.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Alleyn said, and nodded to the constable at the door. ‘Before you go, though – was Mrs Templeton your patient too?’
‘She was,’ Harkness agreed and looked wary.
‘Would you have expected anything like this? Supposing it be a case of suicide?’
‘No. I wouldn’t.’
‘Not subject to fits of depression? No morbid tendencies? Nothing like that?’
Harkness looked at his hands. ‘It wasn’t an equable disposition,’ he said carefully. ‘Far from it. She had “nervous” spells. The famous theatrical temperament, you know.’
‘No more than that?’ Alleyn persisted.
‘Well – I don’t like discussing my patients and never do, of course, but –’
‘I think you may say the circumstances warrant it.’
‘I suppose so. As a matter of fact, I have been a bit concerned. The temperaments had become pretty frequent and increasingly violent. Hysteria, really. Partly the time of life, but she was getting over that. There was some occasion for anxiety. One or two little danger signals. One was keeping an eye on her. But nothing suicidal. On the contrary. What’s more, you can take my word for it she was the last woman on earth to disfigure herself. The last.’
‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘That’s a point, isn’t it? I’ll see you later.’
‘I suppose you will,’ Harkness said disconsolately and Alleyn went upstairs. He found that Miss Bellamy’s room now had the familiar look of any area given over to police investigation: something between an improvised laboratory and a photographer’s studio with its focal point that unmistakable sheeted form on the floor.
Dr Curtis, the police surgeon, had finished his examination of the body. Sergeant Bailey squatted on the bathroom floor employing the tools of his trade upon the tinsel picture and as Alleyn came in Sergeant Thompson, whistling between his teeth, uncovered Mary Bellamy’s terrible face and advanced his camera, to within a few inches of it. The bulb flashed.
Fox was seated at the dressing-table completing his notes.
‘Well, Curtis?’ Alleyn asked.
‘Well, now,’ Dr Curtis said. ‘It’s quite a little problem, you know. I can’t see a verdict of accident, Alleyn, unless the coroner accepts the idea of her presenting this spray gun thing at her own face and pumping away like mad at it to see how it works. The face is pretty well covered with the stuff. It’s in the nostrils and mouth and all over the chest and dress.’
‘Suicide?’
‘I don’t see it. Have to be an uncommon determined effort. Any motive?’
‘Not so far unless you count a suspected bout of tantrums, but I don’t yet know about that. I don’t see it, either. Which leaves us with homicide. See here, Curtis. Suppose I picked up that tin of Slaypest, pointed it at you and fell to work on the spray gun – what’d you do?’
‘Dodge.’
‘And if I chased you up?’
‘Either collar you low or knock it out of your hands or bolt, yelling blue murder.’
‘Exactly. But wouldn’t the immediate reaction, particularly in a woman, be to throw up her arms and hide her face?’
‘I think it might, certainly. Yes.’
‘Yes,’ said Fox glancing up from his notes.
‘It wasn’t hers. There’s next to nothing on the hands and arms. And look,’ Alleyn went on, ‘at the actual character of the spray. Some of it’s fine, as if delivered from a distance. Some, on the contrary, is so coarse that it’s run down in streaks. Where’s the answer to that one?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dr Curtis.
‘How long would it take to kill her?’
‘Depends on the strength. This stuff is highly concentrated. Hexa-ethyl-tetra-phosphate of which the deadly ingredient is TEPP: tetra-ethyl-pyro-phosphate. Broken down, I’d say, with some vehicle to reduce the viscosity. The nozzle’s a very fine job: designed for indoor use. In my opinion the stuff shouldn’t be let loose on the market. If she got some in the mouth, and it’s evident she did, it might only be a matter of minutes. Some recorded cases mention nausea and convulsions. In others, the subject had dropped down insensible and died a few seconds later.’
Fox said: ‘When the woman – Florence – found her, she was on the floor in what Florence describes as a sort of fit.’
‘I’ll see Florence next,’ Alleyn said.
‘And when Dr Harkness and Mr Templeton arrived she was dead,’ Fox concluded.
‘Where is Harkness?’ Dr Curtis demanded. ‘He’s pretty damn’ casual, isn’t he? He ought to have shown up at once.’
‘He was flat out with a hangover among the exotics in the conservatory,’ Alleyn said. ‘I stirred him up to look at Mr Richard Dakers, who was in a great tizzy before he knew there was anything to have a tizzy about. When I talked to him he fainted.’
‘What a mob!’ Curtis commented in disgust.
‘Curtis, if you’ve finished here I think you’ll find your colleague in reasonably working order downstairs.’
‘He’d better be. Everything is fixed now. I’ll do the PM tonight.’
‘Good. Fox, you and I had better press on. We’ve got an office. Third on the right from here.’
They found Gracefield outside the door looking scandalized.
‘I’m very sorry, I’m sure, sir,’ he said, ‘but the keys on this landing appear to have been removed. If you require to lock up …’
‘ ’T, ’t! ’ Fox said, and dived in his pocket. ‘Thoughtless of me! Try this one.’
Gracefield coldly accepted it. He showed Alleyn into a small pleasantly furnished study and left Fox to look after himself, which he did very comfortably.
‘Will there be anything further, sir?’ Gracefield asked Alleyn.
‘Nothing. This will do admirably.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Here,’ Fox said, ‘are the other keys. They’re interchangeable which is why I took the liberty of removing them.’
Gracefield received them without comment and retired.
‘I always seem to hit it off better,’ Fox remarked, ‘with the female servants.’
‘No doubt they respond more readily to your unbridled body-urge,’ said Alleyn.
‘That’s one way of putting it, Mr Alleyn,’ Fox primly conceded.
‘And the other is that I tipped that antarctic monument. Never mind: you’ll have full play in a minute with Florence. Take a look at this room. It was Mr Richard Dakers’s study. I suppose he now inhabits a bachelor flat somewhere, but he was adopted and brought up by the Templetons. Here you have his boyhood, adolescence and early maturity in microcosm. The usual school groups on one wall. Note the early dramatic interest. On the other three, his later progress. O.U.D.S. Signed photographs of lesser lights succeeded by signed photographs of greater ones. Sketches from unknown designers followed by the full treatment from famous designers a
nd topped up by Saracen. The last is for a production that opened three years ago and closed last week. Programme of Command Performance. Several framed photographs of Miss Mary Bellamy, signed with vociferous devotion. One small photograph of Mr Charles Templeton. A calendar on the desk to support the theory that he left the house a year ago. Books from E. Nesbit to Samuel Beckett. Who’s Who in the Theatre and Spotlight and cast an eye at this one, will you?’
He pulled out a book and showed it to Fox. ‘Handbook of Poisons by a Medical Practitioner. Book plate: “Ex libris C. H. Templeton.” Let’s see if the medical practitioner has anything to say about pest killers. Here we are. Poisons of Vegetable Origin. Tobacco. Alkaloid of.’ He read for a moment or two. ‘Rather scanty. Only one case quoted. Gentleman who swallowed nicotine from a bottle and died quietly in thirty seconds after heaving a deep sigh. Warnings about agricultural use of. And here are the newer concoctions including HETP and TEPP. Exceedingly deadly and to be handled with the greatest care. Ah, well!’
He replaced the book.
‘That’ll be the husband’s,’ Fox said. ‘Judging by the book plate.’
‘The husband’s. Borrowed by the ward and accessible to all and sundry. For what it’s worth. Well, Foxkin, that about completes our tour of the room. Tabloid history of the tastes and career of Richard Dakers. Hallo! Look here, Fox.’
He was stooping over the writing-desk and had opened the blotter.
‘This looks fresh,’ he said. ‘Green ink. Ink on desk dried up and anyway, blue.’
There was a small Georgian glass above the fireplace. Alleyn held the blotting-paper to it and they looked at the reflected image:
‘I’. . . . . e . . ck to . . y . . at it w . u . d . e . o . se my . . . te . ding I . . . . n’t . . . n . . ven a . . . rible shock . . . that I . . . ’t get . t . . rted . . t . . t I’m sure . t . . ll . e . . . ter if we do .’t me . t. I c. . ’t. hin . clea . . . now . ut at . . ast I. now I’ll n. . . . for. . . e your tr. . . ment of An . . . d . this after . . on. I . . ould . ave been told everything from the beginning. R.’
Alleyn copied this fragmentary message on a second sheet of paper, carried the blotter back to the desk and very carefully removed the sheet in question.
